Glad to have found a clue leading away from the statue, Lueck starts a careful examination of that section of the wall, looking for a secret door and/or latch mechanism. Take 20, Perception is 34.
"Hey! The... The..." Lueck struggles to remember what he heard the masons call it when he would pilfer bites from their nearby meal sacks. "The mortar. Right here its missing. I think there might be a door here."
Kára shakes her head trying to clear out the strange feeling of having her mind intruded. She takes several steps away from the alter and decides to keep her distance from the evil residing in it.
"Can you open it? Might as well see what's worth hiding." the cleric says.
"Sure!" Lueck says with enthusiasm, before he actually knows if he can or not.
He retrieves his 10' pole from the other room. He sets the tip against the flagstones that he noticed lacked mortar. Before putting weight against it, he says "You might want to be ready in case something nasty is on the other side." He gives the others a moment to ready weapons if they wish, and then starts pushing on the stones with his pole to try and open the door.
"Oooh. A secret door!" Hana says exited and readies her bow as she moves up to Lueck and Kára.
Peering into the opening hesitantly with her bow ready if something jumps out at her she glances at Lueck, "Great job! Do you think this will lead us to the hobgoblin leader? Probably not though, he'd have had to close the door behind him and I'm sure he didn't have time to shore up the bricks on this one."
Cairenn watches warily, gesturing 'Abraxes' back out of range and standing shoulder to shoulder with his half-sister.
"...well-found," he murmurs when Lueck reveals the secret tunnel. He thinks it would have been nice if he could have dramatically revealed it via Abraxes, but... you can't have it all.
The knife, now.... he studies it intently but learns nothing new. Careful he doesn't get the blood on his fancy clothes, he studies it before wiping it clean on the body of the dead hobgoblin. A knife is a knife, and it never hurts to have another weapon.
"Shall we proceed down this discovered passage, then?"
When they go down the short corridor, Lueck will lead with his pole. In addition to visually scanning for traps, he'll slide the tip of the pole along the ground and, every five feet or so, press his weight down on the end. By sliding the tip like that, he's hoping to catch any tripwires that he misses seeing. By pressing down on the tip ahead of them, he's hoping to trigger any pits or pressure plate traps he might miss.
At the far end, he'll look for a secret door, assuming the one they found in the hobgoblin lair has a counterpart. This time, if he does find a door, he'll check it carefully for traps.
Erich follows Lueck into the secret corridor. "Smart use of that pole, Lueck! I would have been caught completely off-guard by that rock fall."
Erich runs a hand along one of the arches. "Hmm. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about these arches makes me nervous."
Kára once again shakes her head of the visions and peers down the tunnel. "Keep your eyes open. If they have a fish cannon then I don't want to know what else they've come up with."
Hana follows after Lueck and the gang in to the secret entrance. "Fish canon? That explains the noise... and the smell." she remarks, glancing at Cairen.
Round 1. Fight!
"On your knees!" Kára shouts.
Lueck shifts behind the hobgoblin, drawing his dagger and slashing at him as he does so.
To hit
Damage
"What the--" Kaine steps back in shock as the hobgoblin drops from the ceiling, his heart pounding in his chest.
As soon as Kára's magic drops the scimitar-wielding hobgoblin to the ground, Erich shakes off his shock and dashes forward, freeing one of his daggers as he does so. He makes a quick slash at the hobgoblin and bobs back, watching for another opening.
"Yikes! How'd that thing get in here?" Hana calls out in shock as the bat thing falls from the ceiling and drops her bow and draws her sword as she suddenly finds herself in melee.
"--does it still smell that bad?!" Cairenn hissed to his sister after Hana's comment about the fish smell. "Ugh, I thought I'd gotten it off! Why didn't you say something!?"
Without waiting for an answer from his sister, Cairenn had determinedly cast a spell to rid himself of the wretched stink, while the bulk of the group had gone ahead. Style mattered, okay. He would catch up with them once he didn't smell like a dockside doxie who'd wound up in a fisherman's net...
Round 1
Of course, not ten seconds later, he heard the others shouting. The half-elf rolled his eyes and ran after them.
"What now?" he yelled as he ran up-- then skidded to a stop once within the range of Kara's light. (Abraxes was still chilling over by the bat statue.) "What is that above you?!"
"Courage! Honor! Stand firm against this assault on faith and reason! Cairenn yells, his voice ringing marvelously in the large cavern space. "And as for you-- did nobody tell you purple's so last season?"
Round 1:
Erich hears Cairenn's confident battle cry echoing in from the hall behind him. He grins. We just went through a small army of hobgoblins out there, he thinks, we can handle one more, even if he does have some sort of odd magic.
But the grin quickly fades when the hobgoblin shifts into gaseous form. "Well, that's a nice trick! How in the world are we supposed to hurt him now?"
He hears the screeching of the bats as the swarm begins to move in. "Oh boy," he mutters. "This might be a little tougher than I anticipated..."
He lifts his daggers into a defensive position, standing ready and alert for any threats.
Round 1
Standing rady to strike the bat-goblin-demon-thingy down with her sword Hana is caught completely unaware as it suddenly turns into purple flame. "Foul monster! Are you a demon or a ghost!? No matter, Freya will protect me!"
Raising her holy symbol for the demon to see Hana calls on the power of Freya to guard her against evil.
"The real round one!"
Kára moves into the tunnel and hopes to dispatch the "batgod" before his swarm arrives.
Round 1- Lyrasael
"I think the smell is an improvement on you!" Lyr shot back, smirking as she watched her half-sibling try and rid himself of the stink.
When Cairenn bolted the other way, the elf shook her head and followed. On seeing the ball of purple flame, she frowned. "I don't know if my arrows will do anything but go through that!" she yelled.
Still, she readied her bow in case the creature solidified.
Round 1.
Lueck presses his advantage, knowing that, if nothing else, he is serving as a distraction.
Lueck attacks again with his dagger. Even though the roll wasn't great, I think I should keep the surprise round roll. A slash with the dagger, and continue to provide flanking for others.
(also in round 1)
Quickly, Cairenn runs over what he knows of the creature.
"The tokens of faith of the gods should keep the mist at bay! I fear that weapons must be magical or made of silver to easily damage it, however-- and I fear it can command our own souls too!"